This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2014, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.
Oil and gas leases on more than 100,000 federal acres across southern Utah are to be sold at auction Tuesday at the Bureau of Land Management's state office in Salt Lake City.
The eastern fringe of San Juan County accounts for about one-third of the acreage (96 parcels). The land to be leased for drilling is administered by the Bureau of Land Management's (BLM) Moab, Monticello, Richfield and St. George field offices.
Parcels administered by the bureau's Color Country district to be sold Tuesday include many clustered outside Salina, a large block straddling Interstate 70 west of the San Rafael Swell and several scattered around Sanpete County.
The agency is taking public comment through June 16 on its next auction, slated for Aug. 19, when another 22 parcels go on the block covering 39,287 acres managed by its Salt Lake and Fillmore field offices. After conducting an environmental assessment, BLM pulled about 27,000 acres from this sale.